You're listening to “Financial Advisor Marketing”—the best show on the planet for financial advisors who want to get more clients, without all the stress. You're about to get the real scoop on everything from lead generation to closing the deal.
James is the founder of TheAdvisorCoach.com, where you can find an entire suite of products designed to help financial advisors grow their businesses more rapidly than ever before. Now, here is your host, James Pollard.
James: Financial advisors, welcome to another episode of the Financial Advisor Marketing podcast. This is going to be a good one. I've been looking forward to recording this podcast episode for I think about two weeks now, because it's going to be about marketing to the top 0.5% of net worth households.
What's interesting is that even though I’ve talked about marketing to high-income individuals, like doctors, attorneys, engineers, and even high-net-worth individuals—if you look at the list, it's managers and teachers. These are occupations that tend to top the net-worth list, and people are always shocked by teachers—it’s very rare, I don't think I’ve ever explicitly sat down and outlined any sort of plan to market to individuals who are decamillionaires and beyond. [01:12.3]
But this man, Noah Rosenfarb, is going to talk to me about that and, by definition, also you because you're listening to the podcast now, and he is a fascinating individual. We're going to get into his background, what he does, how he is also an investor himself. He's got some great stories to tell. Noah, thank you so much for being here.
Noah: Thanks for having me, and thanks for producing such great content, I really enjoy it.
James: Thank you, this is going to be it. This has been a wonderful journey with the podcast and all the other stuff, and it just builds over time. Tell the audience about yourself, like who are you? Where did you come from? How did you get where you are today?
Noah: Sure. I’m a third-generation CPA. I started out in my dad's accounting firm after graduating college, helped him scale that from 12 people when I joined to 70 when he sold it, and then started a family office for divorced women. Grew that and sold that back in 2014, was partially retired for a number of years, and then, really based on my own family's need, I created Freedom Family Office to work with, essentially, that half percent entrepreneurs that either are earning seven-figure incomes, have an eight-figure net worth, and we're providing for them all the services that you might imagine. [02:22.6]
But our philosophy is helping them become rich beyond money, which for us means that they're earning predictable income. They're creating their ideal life, and they're building their legacy.
James: I don't want to be the benchmark guy because comparison is the thief of joy, but I’ve got to know, what exactly is the cut off for the top 0.5%, as far as net worth or income, or both? Let's see.
Noah: I think it's right around that seven-figure income, eight-figure net worth. That's the the half percent is today.
James: So, listeners have something to shoot for.
Noah: Yeah, no doubt. [02:56.1]
James: What I want listeners to know is I believe the way I found you was, so for those of you who don't know, I have my hands in a lot of different honey pots and I have different businesses and different things that I work on, and I had a local service-based business and I started looking for ways to sell it or at least to exit it in some way.
I didn't really know what I was doing, which is why I started looking for ways to get on top of that and prepare the business to be sold, because I knew that all the hard work is typically done at least a year in advance, where you get new books in order, you are getting training materials, because if people are buying a service based business, they want to open a binder and they want to see that you have uniformed employees, you have a process for when things go wrong, you have a process for calling the insurance company for liability insurance and contractor insurance, and so on and so forth. They're just systems, systems, systems, and clean books, where they go through they see exactly what the expenses are, exactly where the income is coming from. They can see that it is predictable and they can judge multiple. [03:58.0]
A lot of that information I actually learned from you. I learned it from Noah, listeners, because he had a book called Exit: Healthy, Wealthy and Wise. I bought that book, went through it, and put a plan together to eventually exit that local service-based business, and it was a great journey. I think that's where I reached out to you or first connected with you. I'm not entirely sure. What was the origin of that book? How did that come into fruition?
Noah: That's a really interesting story. While I was a practicing accountant, I also built a kind of somewhat unique practice of helping our entrepreneurial clients create strategic plans, and one of the plans for the clients that I created was to help them get to a certain number of net worth and sell their business when it achieved a certain value, and I helped them scale that company from-- I think when I started, maybe they were doing 12 million in revenue. I helped them scale up to 50 million in revenue before they sold it to a private equity firm, stayed on with that. The new buyer helped them scale it to about 100 million. [04:55.7]
One of the things that happened was, after that first exit, six months later, I was sitting with that client in a therapist’s office where he was crying, talking about potentially getting divorced, and I thought I, as his advisor that really helped him achieve what I thought was his most important goal, really missed the mark. I came to learn that 75% of owners regret selling their company. So, I went on this journey to figure out what's really going on there, what's happening.
I had a podcast in 2012 and 2013, where I was interviewing entrepreneurs and accumulated that research and then wrote that book Exit: Healthy, Wealthy and Wise, and, really, the core focus of our family office now is counseling entrepreneurs before they sell their business. We have a lot of unique tax strategies for them that we implement, and then, of course, they have their biggest liquidity event of their life, and so as a registered investment advisory firm, it's a great time to be an advisor when someone has that liquidity, man.
James: That's a good point. There are lots of things that people don't consider which you do talk about in the book with the personal life, talking to your family about what life is going to look like after. [06:04.0]
One of the things that I just didn't bring to my consciousness when I was reading that or thinking about this whole thing is that for a lot of business owners, the amount they pay in taxes, the percentage, actually goes up, because, obviously, a lot of the business deductions go away and all the cool things that you'd have as an entrepreneur.
I think, anecdotally, I may be completely off the mark. I may be the exception to the rule. I think the reason I didn't regret it, and still don't, is because I have other things to keep me busy. So, I think what you're describing is when people just sell their business, because they work, work, work, work, work, and then sell, have the big exit, their goal is accomplished. Part of that, in my opinion, comes from not having another goal. But they just don't have anything left to do, their purpose is gone. Their baby is gone. It's like losing a child. It really is.
Noah: Yeah, and we've found that, and so what we do is a lot of the preparation for the entrepreneurs that come to us in understanding, what is it that they're going to spend their time doing when they're no longer working in their business and confirming with them that that seems more rewarding and enjoyable, and drives closer to their passion and hits their higher purpose. [07:12.5]
James: Absolutely. One of the things I also like about you is you are an investor, and I tell advisors all the time, it's very important to speak your niche’s language. These people are investing in themselves, in their businesses and other businesses. There's obviously private equity, there's real estate, and you've done that stuff. You've done real estate businesses and more. What is the best investment you've ever made?
Noah: I mean, I think, for everybody, it's investing in yourself. There's no better investment than yourself, if you believe in yourself. Once you get past the point where it's really hard to invest your capital in yourself, I would say you’ve got to invest in your business, and if you can get a higher IRR in your business investments and you can get in other outside investments, then you should consider selling your company. [07:54.6]
James: That's actually a good point and I tend to think about that the same way. I feel as if people get caught in this trap, and maybe you see this, too, where they have either been trained or trained themselves to just invest in their businesses, invest in their businesses, invest in their businesses, and unfortunately, they continue to do that even when it's no longer viable when it’s no longer generating that return. How can you spot when that point occurs? Do you just ruthlessly track your numbers and look at them every single day or--
Noah: Yeah, what we try and encourage people to do is actually a unique metric of return on time, and return on time has two components.
One is your cash that you're able to take out of the company compared to the hours that you're working in the business, and that's a combination of salary and benefits and expenses that you're writing off that you would probably still have if you didn't own the company. [08:45.6]
And the other is value creation, so if your income went from $1 million to $1.5 million, the value of your company may have gone up by $2 million, so you take that business valuation. Maybe your business is worth $7 million now and your income was worth 5 million last year to 2 million in value creation. Your income is $1.5 million in cash, so you’ve created $3.5 million in value out of that company. If you were working 2,000 hours a year, do the math, $1,750 an hour? That's where you're at.
So, you want to make sure you're continuously increasing that return on time in your business, and if you can't do it, by increasing your income or increasing the value, you should try and do it by decreasing your time.
James: It seems like you're definitely speaking my language. This is something that I wish more people paid attention to instead of just “number go up.” They look at the top line. Number go up, good. Number go down, bad. No, not necessarily. Sometimes number go down, good.
Noah: Yeah.
James: Sometimes number go up is real bad. One of the challenges that I encounter with helping financial advisors and I'm sure that advisors encounter when trying to do this on their own is finding people who are in the top 1% and the half percent. [10:00.0]
I think part of that comes from because these people are multiple businesses, meaning, you could have a textile person in the textiles industry, then you could have someone who owns medical practices, and you could have a real estate investor, and they're all in different parts of the money universe. How exactly do you find these people?
Noah: I don't think we actually approach it in the most efficient way possible. I think the best way to do it is to become a niche expert in an industry and say, “Hey, we help plastics companies,” or “We help textile companies,” or “We help distributors.”
But we really have this broad-based approach and it's kind of an evolution of just my personality where I do a lot of education, and so most of the education is through organizations that I'm also a member in, and I’m members in EO, the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, which is a wonderful group of 15,000 entrepreneurs around the world, so I do a lot of speaking to those chapters. I'm a member of YPO, which is also a global organization of entrepreneurs, presidents, and I guess you could say, inheritors, about a third of each. [11:05.0]
Again, so these are people that already fit my target market, but don't have something in common in their business. They're more common in their psychology of their willingness to be exposed to other entrepreneurs, learn from other entrepreneurs, and when they have the good fortune of learning from me, often that leads to them reaching out to say, “Hey, I’m . Can you help me?
James: I think that's an important point, and I was talking about this to someone last night, where he was like, I tried a bunch of niches, or not tried, but I'm looking at a bunch of niches. I’ve done this, this and this. Do you have any recommendations for me?
I was like, Yes, demographics are important, but psychographics are more important. Knowing how someone thinks, meaning, if you have the same personality type as an ultra-high-net-worth investor, that is something that can't easily be replicated by a competitor. A competitor can't just come in and change his or her personality overnight. You can't fake that. You either have it or you don't. [12:08.2]
Now, you can strengthen it, you can weaken it, but at the end of the day, it's something that you have that's unique to you. It is the way you think, the way you act, the way you speak, the way you talk, and I think that's important for advisors to note. I wouldn't try to be a fish that flies and I wouldn't try to be a bird that swims. Is there anything that you have tried in the marketing realm trying to get in front of these people that has not worked well?
Noah: Yeah, there was a time from about 2012 to 2014, where I still owned my divorce family office for divorced women, and I was trying to start, at the time, a family office for entrepreneurs and I wasn't successful, and one of the reasons I wasn't successful was because, our marketing, we couldn't get the product-market fit right. We were trying to speak with owners about preparing to sell their companies and everyone would say, “Well, come back to me in five years when I'm planning to sell,” and it was really hard to find that fit. But when we were doing that again, I don't think our message was right, but we did a lot of lumpy mail, we did a lot of seminars, but I think it was because our messaging didn't work that we didn't get the results that we wanted. [13:16.0]
Now to flip it around, what are we doing that's working? We do a lot of webinars and presentations, educational conferences that we're going to and speaking at, and we've got a variety of prepackaged presentations, and it's the same business marketing plan that I had when I had a family office for divorced women. I had that same kind of tool set and just recreated it for entrepreneurs.
James: Have you ever partnered with business brokers? That seems like something I would do from day one.
Noah: I've attempted to, but their incentives are not necessarily aligned with ours. We're really focused on helping that entrepreneur achieve their goals and the investment banker is focused on getting the entrepreneur to sell their business so they can work with them. [14:05.5]
James: Yeah. Right.
Noah: And so, in a lot of cases, when we meet with owners, the reality is they shouldn't be selling or they shouldn't be selling at the price that they could get today, because if they spend 12 months working on their business and figuring out what the priorities are, they might be able to get 50% more in 12 months. Or, again, if they sell now, they might be really unhappy and the investment banker doesn't necessarily care about that, but we do.
So, we haven't found a good fit there. We're continuing to look for those good fits, and one of the unique pieces that we're hoping will create a better strategic alliance relationship between our firm and bankers is that we have a unique proprietary tax strategy where entrepreneurs selling their companies can eliminate, and not necessarily just defer, but avoid capital gains tax, income tax and estate tax. As a result, if a seller is anticipating a $50 million exit, but the offers are coming in at 40, if you bring us in and that seller can kind of net all 40, that's better than selling at 50 and paying the taxes, so net-net they're in the same spot. [15:14.5]
James: Absolutely, and I'm also thinking of, now, this is what I do, I browse a lot of like business-for-sale websites, like website domains and Shopify stores and e-commerce websites. But the problem with that is they don't disclose what the business is. They don't say xyz.com is for sale and this is the business, because they have some of the financials. They say this is how much it makes in revenue, this is how much it makes net, this is margin, so on and so forth.
If they just disclose those businesses, I would think maybe if I were in your shoes, I'd start reaching out to these people. But that's tricky. You're like walking on the razor's edge with that. So, I'm just trying to brainstorm some things. Yeah, it's just a unique space. [15:59.0]
Noah: One of the things we're looking at doing and, again, probably is more in your area of expertise, certainly, than ours, is buyer-intent data that's now becoming available and matching someone's Google search for an investment banker with putting us in front of them, either with some direct mail, some phone calls, or even just Google Ads.
But I haven't implemented any of those tests yet, because I don't really know how to do it and we don't have the internal resources to do it, and I don't know how to hire somebody who's capable of doing it at a price that seems to make sense.
James: That's because buyer-intent data research and marketing tends to be pretty high-level and it may be beyond the scope of a lot of advisors who are listening, so I will transition to something that can help them because they're not going to do the crazy investments to come from that. [16:49.4]
Hey, financial advisors. If you'd like even more help building your business, I invite you to subscribe to James' monthly paper-and-ink newsletter, “The James Pollard Inner Circle”. When you join today, you'll get more than $1,000 worth of bonuses, including exclusive interviews that aren't available anywhere else. Head on over to TheAdvisorCoach.com/coaching to learn more.
James: Something about your website that I love is that it spells out your process in clear terms. You tell people that you will help them get from where they are now to where they want to be, and that's rich beyond money and I love that. You help them put together things like net-worth statements, tax pictures, estate plans, and family mottos, and when I read that, I thought to myself, What exactly is a family motto? What's an example of one?
Noah: Our family motto is “Prosperity = Wealth × Happiness” and “We should live our life like we already won the lottery.” That's our family motto.
So, what that means with my kids is money isn't everything, because prosperity is really more of a holistic concept and we also have to be happy. But being happy, being a bum, skiing every day, and then putting out a sign in the Main Street to try and get some food or get the money, that's not real happiness. Having money and being happy together is what makes a great life. [18:10.8]
But you should try and live your life like you won the lottery, meaning that striving for more money shouldn't be that important. You should be able to have all the things you want with what you have today.
James: What does the conversation look like when you're sitting down with a business owner and explaining, “Hey, I think it's important that you have a family motto”? How does that come up? How do you flesh out what it is for someone else?
Noah: I think most owners we're dealing with all entrepreneurs, and so all of them have values in their company. All of them have either some mission or vision in their company, and so we're just helping them apply the same methodology to their family and taking a look at, what are the types of things that bond your family together? What are the common beliefs that you guys have and how can you encapsulate them, much like you might have a tagline in your business like “Rich Beyond Money” is for us? How do you develop that tagline for your family? When people think of the Pollard family, what is it that comes to mind for them? [19:07.4]
James: That's a good point, and you're right, a lot of them have these values, and even if they don't, they unconsciously live by them. Everybody has values whether they have verbalized them or not, but the power is in verbalizing them and writing them down and applying standards to your life, whether it's your business, your relationships with your children, with your spouse, so on and so forth.
And I love that you help families create core values, or, at least, verbalize them and get them written down. Why are values important also? And how are values different from the family motto, like creating family values?
Noah: I think the family values are more oriented towards-- I like to think of them as behaviors even more than values, because sometimes I think that it's easier to talk about an action than this amorphous description of something that you might think of, like we have empathy in our business as one of our values. [20:06.8]
I don't know that empathy, as a value, by itself, is as important as the fundamental, which is something that we kind of promote in our business, which we could get into, which is to put yourself in the client's shoes, which is more of a direction and helping somebody understand what is it that they could be doing.
In our family, just to give you an example, “our core beliefs” is how we refer to them. Not necessarily core values, but core beliefs. We've got:
“Be happy. Express gratitude for today and look forward to life.”
“‘Wisdom = Knowledge × Action.’ So, learn and apply.”
“Plan and persist, and do the hard things first so the rest of the life is easy.”
“Give generously, which is creating more value than you consume, and spend modestly. Always live below your means.”
James: Those are awesome. I love that. For financial advisors, Noah's website is FreedomFamilyOffice.com, and I want to make sure I'm describing your business correctly. [21:04.0]
There are financial advisors and financial planners who there are some that work with anyone with a pulse, and I tell them not to all the time. And at all income levels, they take all comers, right? Then there are family offices. These are the big dogs. These are real players. These are the Rockefellers. These are the Schwabs. These are the du Ponts here in Delaware. People don't even realize, I'm in Upper Delaware now. It's all du Pont everything. It's crazy. People don't realize.
There's a road in Delaware called Route 13 and people joke like, Oh, yeah, I don't go to Delaware, but I’ve driven through Delaware. That's a story for another podcast episode. I learned this a couple years ago. It's a long stretch of road. It was made as a supply chain for the du Pont family to deliver materials through to companies. Do you realize how crazy that is? They had enough money that they created this road, this literal infrastructure throughout an entire state. That's nuts. That's real, real balling. People are like, Oh, I’ve got this Lamborghini. No, no, no, they created a road throughout the entire state. [22:05.0]
But I think that you exist somewhere in the middle. It’s for people who don't necessarily need an entire family office?
Noah: Yeah, we talk about eight-figure net-worth families, so kind of that $10 million to $100 million range, and we do have some families that are wealthier. But once you get above $200 million, $300 million, $400 million, your needs are very different, your approach is very different.
So, we're really targeting mostly founder-led companies, entrepreneurs that built the business. They may have taken over Mom and Dad's business, but now they've grown it, and so they're really creators. They're innovators. They're the ones that, in our business, we treat them like heroes. When I grew up, Bill Gates was my hero and I looked at Richard Branson as a hero or people like that, and so maybe our clients aren't at that financial level, but we have that spirit.
James: Right. I want to ask you about that, because I like to talk with people like you because you're around these people and you get to see them, and I like to take this message and spread it to people who are listening to the podcast. What are some differences that you've noticed between people who achieved this level of wealth? [23:11.8]
Because we've already touched on the psychographic part, so I want to dig a little bit deeper into that. What are some differences in, I hate the term mindset, but like the psychology of how these people think versus your, quote-unquote, “average person”?
Noah: I think they value their time and they're willing to find other people to do things on their behalf that they might be able to do themselves, but they find someone else that can either do it better than them at a lower cost or just do it for them at a lower cost, even if it might not even be better, just because it gets done.
Where I see the biggest distinction between eight-figure net-worth entrepreneurs and not-eight-figure net-worth entrepreneurs is captured by a book written by Gino Wickman called Rocket Fuel, and it's around the visionary-integrator pairing. [24:05.2]
Our clients are all visionaries, in that terminology. They're people that have big ideas that manage big relationships that typically are the best salespeople in their company, that are the best recruiters in their company that come up with the best new ideas for products and strategy.
But what they need by their side is an integrator, someone who can take their ideas and bring them to the team in an organized way, and manage that implementation and organization. When you have that pairing together, which Gino Wickman refers to as “rocket fuel,” that's when the business can really excel.
Unfortunately, for a lot of those entrepreneurs that are running a single retail location or they have a small service business, they're putting in too much of their own effort in the product or the service, and they can't get out of that and elevate themselves to become a visionary in their business, because they're delivering the service. [25:04.4]
James: And you see that in a lot of major success stories, like you have the Woz and Steve Jobs. You have Ballmer and Gates. These are the people that don't necessarily get the limelight on them as often.
One of the things I want to caution advisors whenever they hear the visionary message, I want you to understand, advisors, that like all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles or squares, there can be a trait that is necessary, but not sufficient. Lots of people have vision and vision is definitely necessary, but there are lots of broke visionaries, too. There are lots of broke, perseverant people. People read Think and Grow Rich and they're like, Okay, I need a list of goals, I need to persevere. It’s like, yes, but that isn't necessarily a guarantee.
One of the things that I’ve noticed about people who outsource, they tend to fall into two camps. There are people who believe that you can outsource everything from day one, and they read The E Myth one time and they believe that that can be them. There are other people who realize that they need to outsource a system that works and those are the people, in my experience, at least, that make it work. [26:12.1]
I liked that you stressed that earlier in the episode that they create these, and you have that in your book, too, that I read the excerpt, where they have these systems that you can hand off, and you cannot multiply zeros, so you have to have something that you give to the people once you outsource. I want to caution people not to just blindly think, Oh, Noah said, as long as I have vision, that I'm going to make a bunch of money. It's not necessarily the case. But it is necessary, right?
Noah: No doubt, and it's important to have that person by your side who can take those ideas and implement, and if you don't have them, then you need to be that person. And, usually, if you're strong in one area, you're typically weak in the other. It's hard to be both.
James: Would you say it's better to be a strong either visionary, or one or the other, to be strong in one area, or do you think it's better to have a healthy balance? Or not healthy, but just a balance of both? [27:03.3]
Noah: Yeah, I think, in general, it's better to hone in on your strengths and strengthen your strengths, and not necessarily try and even out your weaknesses. I think most successful people recognize where they're weak and they bring people in that are strong to support them, which is far better than whatever they can accomplish by trying to strengthen their own weakness.
James: I agree. I one hundred percent agree. So many people get led astray by reading some of these Amazon bestsellers, like work on your weaknesses, improve yourself. It's like, yes, that's good, but you're gifted. You already have strengths, you have gifts. You're blessed with certain talents, and if you just add to that, just like the difference between the first and second place in a horse race is literally just a nose, but it's also hundreds of thousands of hours. You need to just work on that strength, because you're strengthening your weakness, you could have your weakness, bring it up 50 percent, but you're still leagues behind someone who has strengthened their strength that is blessed with that. [28:00.8]
There are some things that I totally just suck at and I try to get other people to do that, but I would never dream of trying to get someone who isn't gifted in the things that I'm gifted at to try to do those things, so that is an incredible, incredible point.
What are some of your goals for the next year or two years? What do you want to get out of your business?
Noah: Out of the business, specifically, this year, I'm working three and a half days a week for 40 weeks, and then I’ll be off for 12 weeks. That's new for me. Last year, I was working four and a half days a week, off for 12 weeks, and so I added an extra day off on Fridays, calling them “Fun Fridays for Me.” That's a big goal.
I'm also working towards getting email off my cell phone, and eventually off my computer. So, the email is off my cell phone, but I'm still in the testing phase and I think it'll take a little bit of time to achieve that goal. [28:55.7]
Then the third thing for me is really reducing my time in the business to producing content and managing my direct report, and that's it, and really stepping out of all of the day-to-day relationships with all the clients that I’ve had for a number of years and replacing myself in those relationships with other advisors that, quite frankly, are more capable than I am in the technical aspects. Then, also, because they have the time, desire and attention, they can really serve the clients better than I can.
James: I am curious, what is the goal behind getting rid of email on your cell phone?
Noah: I'm distracted. I'm distracted when I'm outside of work, most importantly, so even during my family time. One of the great advantages of the cell phone for me was it enabled me to spend a lot more weeks out of the office, and take my summers off and only work on school days, and a lot of great things that I feel very blessed to have been able to incorporate into my life.
But what it also did is it made me never off a hundred percent, and so I'm really trying to figure out ways that I could turn it off, because when I turn it off, just like I get my best ideas in the shower, I think those ideas will come to me better when I'm not distracted. [30:13.5]
James: I think it's funny that you bring that up, because, financial advisors, we're recording this in January, and on Christmas Day of 2022, I made the resolution to get email off my phone. I got weird about it. One of my goals for 2022, so this is Christmas 2021 when I'm setting these goals, I said, “I only want to check my email a maximum of two times per day through the entire year,” and I'm thankful to say I did accomplish that goal, but I wanted to go even harder and take it off my phone entirely.
I ended up-- the reason I took it off, for the entire year, I was just not checking it, but that wasn't enough. I had to take it off, because whenever you plug in an iPhone or put it on a charger, it refreshes your mail, or at least it did mine, and I used to have this urge when I see that number, it says 24 or 57 in little red, I'm like, I can't do it. So, I eliminated any need for willpower. I just deleted the thing off the phone and I haven't looked back. [31:15.6]
I have a time where I just sit at my computer. For financial advisors who are listening, I use an email software called eM Client and it's an aggregator, and it's similar to if you have a Mac, you already have an aggregator, but I don't, so that has been awesome. I'm glad to hear that you're doing that, too.
Noah: Yeah.
James: It will make a difference.
Noah: I would say, the other thing to add to that is it's helping the team identify, what are the things that Noah is doing that we don't know about? Because now they're getting to see and they're having to bring it to me to say, “Hey, Noah, we don't know how to address this,” and now it gives me a training opportunity so that, potentially, the two or three times that I get that email in a row, all of a sudden, they're now trained for how to handle it. [31:57.8]
James: Wow, I didn't even think about that either, because I use a project-management software and I will have a VA basically send me stuff when she's-- This whole time I realized I'm just her crutch. But I'm not checking email, but I'm also kinda sorta checking email because I'm still responding to the stuff that she's checking. That's a very good point.
What do you do during your time off? You say you take the 12 weeks off? What are you doing?
Noah: Traveling mostly. I really enjoy traveling. I’ve been to 70 countries on five continents. I enjoy my time with my wife, where we met when we were teenagers and we’ve been married for, I guess, now 23 years, and together for 28, and we have just enjoyed each other's company. Anytime, usually on Wednesdays, we try and get to the beach together and spend the mornings together while the kids are in school.
I like boating. I'm headed off after this interview to go out boating. I keep a boat in Miami. And I like racing cars, but I don't do it too often.
I like enjoying the company of other entrepreneurs and learning and chatting, so I spend a lot of time with other entrepreneurs both inside EO, at the EO Forum that I get together with, at the EO Real Estate Forum that I get together with. I like hanging out with entrepreneurs. That's probably the most fun thing for me. [33:12.2]
James: That's awesome. I have two more questions for you. You've had an incredible amount of success in your career. Financial advisors can read about it, they can go to Freedom Family Office. They can just get a feel for who you are and what you do.
By the way, if you're someone who googled Noah Rosenfarb, the name, maybe in Google or you searched for it in a podcast player and here you are, I strongly recommend that you reach out to him, at least consider how he may be able to help you, if you're someone who is planning on exiting your business. The tax strategies alone, I know what he's talking about because I’ve been through the process and it does take a lot of preparation. It takes planning, and you don't want to wait until the last minute to do that.
The question I have for you is, if you could go back and you know everything that you know now and you're traveling back in time to day one when you're starting Freedom Family Office, what would you tell yourself to do differently? [34:00.3]
Noah: Build the team. When I first started the family office for divorce women, I was coming off The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss, 2007, and decided to outsource everything and build the lifestyle business, and that was really successful because I had a really good income stream, and at the point in time where I was selling the business, I was only working about 150 hours a year managing client relationships and earning thousands of dollars per hour on that time.
The difference for me was that I maybe wasn't prepared to lead and manage a team then like I am now, so I don't know if I tell myself to do it differently, but I would become less fearful that building a business would impede on my personal goals, and that's really the self-limiting belief that I had for a number of years. It was that my desire to really enjoy my time outside of work was the limiting factor to creating a business that was significant and impactful. [35:04.4]
James: I think when you hire people, most of the time, if you get your hiring right, you find people who are incentivized to do a good job. They want to continue to get paid. They want to do a good job for you, eventually do more, take on more responsibilities, if you put the right people on the bus. That's the big disclaimer, you can't just hire anybody. But people, for the most part, want to do a good job. So, if anyone is afraid, then just trust in that and have faith in people. Stop being so negative, I suppose.
Final question. If people want to get in touch with you to learn more, how can they do so?
Noah: LinkedIn is a great spot. You can connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on LinkedIn, because sometimes I don't accept every connection request, but you can always follow me. If you want to learn about our business, you mentioned Freedom Family Office, but you might find some value in going to RichBeyondMoney.com, where I have a free e-book that you can download that talks about our philosophy. [35:57.2]
If you're an advisor that can appreciate what we're doing and you have an interest in maybe joining our team and adopting our philosophy and our marketing strategies to help propel you to advising these entrepreneurs in the half percent, I welcome you to reach out, tell me a little bit about what your goals are and what your business looks like now, and maybe there's an opportunity for us to find a way to combine our firms and help you help more people.
James: Oh, you don't know what you're in for, my friend. You are probably going to get some people reaching out for that one, for sure, because there's an audience of financial advisors and that's a common email I get. It’s like, Do you know anyone who can do this, this, this? Can you help me with this? So, I look forward to seeing what happens with that one.
You heard the man, RichBeyondMoney.com. I highly recommend you search for him on LinkedIn, also on Amazon, so Noah Rosenfarb. His name is going to be in the show notes. It’s going to be in the show title. It should be an easy process for you to find him.
Financial advisors, I hope you enjoyed this episode. We talked about how you can find the top 0.5% of net worth households, how you can build a better business, how you can build systems into what you're doing, and I hope you loved it as much as I did. And I will catch you next week. [37:11.0]
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